We went to db Bistro Moderne for dinner before the play. I love Daniel Boulud’s restaurant in the Wynn, Las Vegas and I was really looking forward to eating at his NY bistro — plus it was only a couple of blocks from the hotel and the theater. It was really the only disappointing experience of the trip. The service was terrible. It was a good 15-20 minutes before anyone even took our drink order. When we finally did get a bottle of wine ordered, they were out of it, so we had to make another selection. I ordered the skate wing, which I dearly love, it is such a wonderful, flaky fish. It was so overcooked that it was like eating tough calamari. I seldom send food back, but I couldn’t even cut the fish it was so rubbery. Everyone was very apologetic, and offered a new dish, which I declined. So they sent over a cheese and bacon pizza which my husband can’t eat — and I shouldn’t — so we sent that back as well. They did a nice special birthday desert plate, but we had ordered the pre fix dinner, which came with desert, so we had appetizers and two deserts. Jack had mentioned that his pork dish was a little cool when it came out, so that had taken that away as well, which was not the intent — so he didn’t get to eat dinner either. Everyone was profusely apologetic and worked to try to make it better, and they didn’t charge us anything for the food. It was such a comedy of errors, I couldn’t be mad, but it was not their night.

That evening was when we went to see A Behanding in Spokane with Christopher Walken. It was truly weird and funny and it was enjoyable to see him in person.

Saturday we got up and wandered around a street fair that was going on Sixth Street. We love those events with all the different stalls of food and crafts. Then we went to Bar Americaine — Bobby Flay’s midtown restaurant for lunch and it was terrific. From there we were originally going to the Guggenheim museum, but it was a cab ride, so we decided to go to the MOMA, instead, which is right there in midtown. We toured that for a while, then walked up to the 24-a-day Apple Store. My husband had forgotten his charger for his iPod, and since I commandeered his Kindle because mine had a dead battery — he need to charge his iPod up. We looked at new iPads, but decided not to get one.

(I hadn’t realized that my Kindle was dead until I got to the airport on Friday and I hadn’t packed the charger either. I had just started a new James Patterson book. So we’re on the plane and I am able to download the book onto my husband’s Kindle before they told everyone to turn off electronic devices. One of the great things about having it is the accessibility of new books almost anywhere, any time.)

So anyway, back to Saturday afternoon.

By this time, we’ve been basically walking for six hours — minus a stop for lunch and one or two stops to rest our feet and have an adult beverage, so we decide to call it an afternoon and head back to the hotel for a bit of a rest. My joints were doing amazingly well, but I had developed a silver-dollar-sized blister on my left foot.

On the way back, we decided that we want to try to get into see The Addams Family with Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. We lucked into some terrific tickets. So we went back to the hotel, rested just a bit, cleaned up and walked up to Trattoria Delart which is this terrific Italian restaurant with an amazing antipasta bar. The food was fabulous and we had a terrific meal grazing through all the goodies on the antipasta bar, finishing up with homemade cannolis and proseco.

Then off to the play, which was terrific. I love Nathan Lane. We saw him last in London in the Producers which was a role he was born to play. James Gandolfini (aka Tony Soprano) sat two rows in front of us, and after the play I stopped briefly to tell him what a fan I am.

Sunday morning was low-key, mainly breakfast and getting ready to catch the plane back. Everybody has New York cab driver stories, but I’ve never had a cab driver like this one. The cab had NO shocks so he’d drive really slow over bumps, otherwise it would have been more miserable than it was. He took us some weird route on the side streets — no expressway, but then we figure out the cab was able to go more than 30 mph. But we got there and had a good flight home.

The one sad note was that when I got home, I learned my friend died Saturday night from cancer, so I’ll have a funeral to attend sometime this week.

So as the hobbit tale was entitled, there and back again. I hope your adventures are fun. Thanks for checking in.

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1 thought on “New York, New York”

What a fabulous birthday weekend (except for that one disaster of a meal!), Carla. I’ve never gotten to visit NYC; I’d really like to someday, though, and I’m sure I will. Glad you enjoyed it so much!
And I hope that you’ve had a decent stretch of time today to relax and rest after all the walking and excitement. Here’s to a good week, as pain-free as possible…